Community Guidelines

Last updated: March 13, 2026

TheLobby exists because people who share a building deserve better than a Facebook group or a paper notice in the elevator. These guidelines exist to protect that — to make sure TheLobby stays the kind of place you actually want to open every day. They're not about rules for their own sake. They're about preserving the trust that makes real community possible.

1. The Philosophy

TheLobby is not a social media platform. There is no algorithm rewarding outrage. There is no engagement score. There are no ads. The goal is not to maximise your time in the app — it's to make your building feel like a community you're glad to be part of.

That means a few things are non-negotiable:

• You are who you say you are. Verified identity is the foundation of trust.
• Your building's community is private. What happens in the building, stays in the building.
• You treat your neighbours the way you'd want to be treated in a shared space you can't leave.
• You do not use the platform to harm, intimidate, or extract value from the people around you.

2. The 5-Layer Trust System

Trust in TheLobby is earned over time, not assumed on day one. New residents start as Probationary members and progress through five layers:

Probationary members can read the feed, RSVP to events, and join groups. They are limited to 3 posts per day. They cannot create events or groups until they achieve Full status.

3. What You Can Post

TheLobby's Lobby Feed is for anything that's genuinely useful or interesting to the people who share your building. Good posts include:

4. What You Cannot Post

Strictly Prohibited (High Severity)

• Harassment or intimidation — targeting a specific person with repeated hostile, threatening, or degrading content. One bad interaction is a disagreement. A pattern is harassment.
• Doxxing — posting someone's personal information (home unit, phone number, workplace, schedule, photos of their door) without their consent.
• Discrimination — content that demeans, excludes, or threatens someone based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or age.
• Explicit or graphic content — sexually explicit material, graphic violence, or content that would be inappropriate in a shared living environment.
• Threats — any content that a reasonable person would interpret as a threat to their safety or the safety of others.
• Impersonation — creating a profile or post that falsely represents you as another resident, manager, or TheLobby staff.

Serious Violations (Medium Severity)

• Misinformation — deliberately spreading false information that could cause harm, panic, or damage someone's reputation in the building.
• Spam — repetitive posts, commercial solicitation without manager approval, or content designed to flood the feed.
• Off-platform coordination — using TheLobby to organise activity that violates these guidelines off the platform.
• Coordinated reporting — flagging content in bad faith, or organising others to flag a specific resident's posts without genuine concern.

Minor Violations (Low Severity)

• Off-topic posts — content with no relevance to the building or its residents.
• Uncivil tone — rude, dismissive, or sarcastic posts that aren't quite harassment but make the community less welcoming.
• Excessive self-promotion — promoting your own business repeatedly in the general feed without adding value.

5. Direct Messages

DMs are private. TheLobby does not read or monitor your private conversations. However, DMs are subject to the same community standards as public posts. Residents can report DM content — reported messages become evidence in a moderation review.

You must never use DMs to harass, threaten, solicit, or intimidate a neighbour. Unsolicited commercial messages are prohibited. Repeated unwanted contact after someone has indicated they don't want to be contacted is harassment.

6. Groups & Events

Community groups and events are self-organised by residents. Group creators are responsible for the content posted within their group. Groups that become vehicles for violating these guidelines can be closed by building managers. Events that are used to exclude residents on discriminatory grounds are prohibited.

7. Endorsements

Endorsing a neighbour is a meaningful action — you're vouching for them as a member of your community. Only endorse residents you have genuinely interacted with. Using endorsements as a tool to manipulate the trust system (endorsing strangers, coordinating bulk endorsements) undermines the system for everyone and is a violation of these guidelines.

8. How Moderation Works

Violations are categorised by severity and result in graduated consequences:

All moderation actions come with a written notice explaining the specific reason. Managers must provide specific reasons — "rule violation" is not sufficient. You have the right to know exactly what you are being warned for.

Flagged posts are not silently removed. They display "[This post is being reviewed]" while under review, so the community maintains transparency about what has been actioned.

9. How to Report a Violation

You can report content from any post, comment, direct message, group post, or resident profile. Reports are confidential — the reported party is not told who reported them. All reports create an audit trail that managers can act on.

Report in good faith. False reports, or using the reporting system to target a specific resident for non-genuine reasons, are themselves a violation of these guidelines.

10. Property Manager Responsibilities

Property managers on TheLobby have elevated access — they can send emergency announcements, view the moderation queue, and act on flagged content. With that access comes responsibility:

• Managers may remove posts only in High severity cases. Medium and Low violations result in flags, not removal.
• Managers may never permanently ban or delete a resident account. Consequences are time-bound only.
• Managers may promote a Probationary resident to Full status. They may never demote a resident.
• Managers must provide a specific written reason for all moderation actions.
• Managers may not use the platform to discriminate against residents, share resident data outside the building, or make announcements for personal commercial gain.

11. TheLobby's Role

TheLobby is the platform operator. We do not read community content except in specific cases: when a High-severity report requires review, when we receive a valid legal request, or when a pattern of reports suggests platform-level abuse.

In cases of severe platform-level abuse (coordinated harassment campaigns, illegal content, impersonation of TheLobby staff), TheLobby may act directly regardless of building-level moderation status.

12. Updates to These Guidelines

We will notify all active users via the app at least 14 days before any material changes to these guidelines take effect. Continued use after that date constitutes acceptance of the updated guidelines.

13. Questions

If you have questions about these guidelines or want to report a concern about how moderation is being handled in your building, email us at hello@lobbyapp.co.